Cooks, Restaurant Average Salary in Nebraska
$37,190 average · $37,190 median · BLS OEWS 2025
SOC Code: 35-2014What is this?
Professional in cooks, restaurant
How much do Cooks, Restaurant make in Nebraska?
The average cooks, restaurant salary in Nebraska is $37,190 per year. That works out to about $17.88 per hour on average. BLS counts roughly 4,750 cooks, restaurant jobs in Nebraska.
Mean and median are close, so pay is relatively concentrated around $37,190. Entry-level roles (10th percentile) report about $37,190; experienced workers at the 90th percentile report about $37,190 — a 0% spread from bottom to top. Figures are employer-reported wages from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program — not self-reported survey averages — so they are the right baseline for offers, raises, and relocation decisions in this market.
How Food Preparation and Serving Careers Are Structured
Food service is the largest low-wage occupational group in the country, and also one where the published data most understates true variation: tipped earnings are inconsistently captured, so wages for servers and bartenders in busy, high-priced markets can run far above the recorded figures, while quiet-market wages match them.
The wage tables and percentile chart on this page show how cooks, restaurant pay is distributed in Nebraska specifically — and because state-level wages for the same occupation routinely differ by 30% or more, the local figures here are the ones that matter for offers, raises, and relocation decisions in this market.
What Moves Pay in This Field
For tipped roles, venue economics dominate — the same skills earn multiples more at a high-volume, high-check establishment. For kitchen roles, the ladder from line cook through sous chef to kitchen manager is the pay path, and it is climbed by demonstrated reliability more than credentials. Hotel and institutional food service generally out-pays restaurants at equivalent levels and adds benefits.
Entry is immediate and the skills are learned working. The realistic financial trajectories are: into supervision (the first-line supervisor premium over crew wages is visible and substantial in this data), into institutional settings with benefits, or out — food service experience transfers credibly into sales, customer success, and operations roles with stronger distributions.
New to reading wage distributions? Our guide to salary percentiles explains how to place yourself on the chart above, and the negotiation playbook shows how to use these numbers in an actual conversation.
Critical Worker ShortageBright Outlook
Cooks, Restaurant is experiencing a critical labor shortage. Employers are actively competing for qualified candidates.
What Do Cooks, Restaurant Do?
Professional in cooks, restaurant
Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) Code: 35-2014
Cooks, Restaurant pay in Nebraska
In Nebraska, cooks, restaurant report a median of $37,190 (about $17.88/hour) across roughly 4,750 jobs. The local pay band runs from about $37,190 at the 10th percentile to $37,190 at the 90th.
Compared with the national distribution, local industry mix and cost of living are the main reasons Nebraska wages for this occupation sit where they do — toggle Regional Price Parity on this page to see purchasing-power-adjusted pay.
Income reality check
The median salary for Cooks, Restaurant in Nebraska of $37,190 falls in the Stably paid band of this framework - roughly ~12% of the U.S. population and ~15% of the global population sit in this band.
Illustrative relative standing for education only - this ladder is a simplified framework, not an official Census, BLS, or World Bank statistical series. Salary figures on Wage Atlas come from official BLS OEWS data.
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Job Outlook 2023-2033
Official BLS Employment Projections for Cooks, Restaurant
Skills & What You Do
No formal educational credential typically required
- Prepare and cook menu items
- Maintain kitchen sanitation
- Monitor food quality
- Estimate ingredient needs
Recent Layoffs Activity
Recent WARN Act workforce reductions in industries that employ cooks, restaurant
- 94 affectedJul 2026
- 198 affectedJul 2026
- 78 affectedJul 2026
- 37 affectedJul 2026
- 113 affectedJul 2026
Source: state WARN Act filings, updated daily
Top Industries for Cooks, Restaurant
| $41,505 | $39,640 | $20 | 99,850 | |
| $38,517 | $37,428 | $19 | 4,964,860 |
Related Occupations
SOC: 41-2021 • 92% match | $45,820 | $45,700 | $22 | 2,035,440 |
SOC: 33-9032 • 90% match | $42,595 | $42,070 | $20 | 7,593,360 |
SOC: 43-3071 • 94% match | $42,347 | $42,330 | $20 | 1,650,140 |
SOC: 43-4171 • 88% match | $39,390 | $39,460 | $19 | 4,946,170 |
| Find Occupation 43 4171 Jobs | ||||
SOC: 35-2012 • 94% match | $38,646 | $38,810 | $19 | 2,712,270 |
SOC: 53-7061 • 94% match | $36,769 | $36,560 | $18 | 2,070,950 |
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Viewing: Cooks, Restaurant (SOC: 35-2014)
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